It sort of bothers me that I hadn't heard of the Bradley Manning issue before, especially since it has been going for over a year and a half. Especially since this was beginning shortly before I stopped following the news as of the last national election we've had here, back in June 2010. Having thought things over more, I'd like to go a little more in-depth on the subject.
Looking around me, the people over here seem ignorant about this issue, perhaps the story didn't quite make it to the Dutch version of 'news'; perhaps we don't care enough. Which latter strikes me as odd, as we are supposed to be a compassionate bunch over here in Europe, all 'up in arms' over civil rights... and stuff. But I guess that is a strongly romanticized image of Europeans. Mainly I think we - and by that I mean the larger portion of us - are chronically fed-up with big issues and have sort of rusted into place with preferring comfortably numb over anything unfortunate going in the world. See popular Dutch television for evidence.
Whistleblowers are good people. In fact, I'd say 'blowing a whistle' (no pun intended) is one of the best ways of proving you're one of the good guys. But being of the good persuasion seems risky as of late. Besides that, it seems a waste of time, since the actual big bad boys are, as they say, too big to fail. Meaning they're either a big American corporation or the American government. Why hasn't anyone been prosecuted over any of the wars the Imperialistic USA has been waging over time? This brings me to the question what human rights, civil rights and conventions on war and protection of the innocent are worth; when they either 'don't apply' are changed or simply ignored when they become inconvenient for a superpower, be that a nation, a corporation or the Catholic Church. International law has failed. If it ever had a point.
I can very well understand how people under constant frustration of not just talking to a wall about these issues, but talking to an enormous re-enforced concrete perimeter wall with razorwire and trigger happy guards patrolling on top indirectly paid for by themselves; lead to civil unrest and, perhaps in the near future, civil war. It is the only way out people see and use, and rightly so I'd say, in getting some real Change going; as the powers that be are too dependant on too many corporations and other powerful groups - too tangled up in interests with power, that they're too afraid to do anything that might change the country. People in government need to stop aiming for more power and wealth, and start aiming for what people in the government are supposed to aim for: improving things for the populace.
Anyone can see there is nothing morally wrong with the actions of Bradley Manning, at least concerning the Leaking. So why isn't there more of this issue in the news? Where are the supporters over here? I sincerely hope this changes soon and things drastically improve for Bradley.
Personally my greater passion comes from a kind of recognition, kinship if you will. It's like when I provided a First Aid presence at a cremation of someone I didn't know, but whose eulogy really struck me because of the many similarities we shared. This Bradley is my kind of guy. He's gay, one of the boys; he's intelligent, though I suspect of a different kind than I possess; he's 24, just half a year older than me; overly passionate, altruistic and ideological; he's blond (what can I say...); he's a man and he's white. To be honest I wouldn't care as much (though I don't think much less) if he were a straight black woman in her 40's, which, put in the light of common social conventions, is rather racist, sexist and discriminatory in many other ways - of me. But I think it's perfectly natural to feel this kinship and automatically be more passionate about injustice towards Bradley, so I'm not troubled. This also reminds me of that blond ex-gay survivor of three posts ago.
Concerning governments and information, I've said something about that in the last post, but I'd like to go into it just a little more. Information is one of the most precious things we as a species possess and pass on to future generations, and perhaps species of Man, if we don't kill everyone before evolution takes us to a significantly different new species (and if that is still possible with all our advances in medicine and psychology). Restricting the sharing, or flow, of that information, or even censuring, hiding or destroying it; all seem an indescribably terrible sin. The loss of the Great Library in old-time Alexandria, was a loss of incredible size, even though we can only guess as to what its complete catalogue was. That we, people, create structures of power to govern us, doesn't in any way grant those constructions the sole right to the collected information of our species. The purpose of government is clear, and it is clearly violated - either by becoming a secondary priority over individual pursuits or group-efforts for power and wealth; or completely ignored by governments that are actually detrimental to the well-being of their people. Or both. What is even more stunning is how the governments of the world seem in constant struggle to keep as much information as possible secret about how they spend money and resources and what they're up to exactly, from the very people who mandated them and provide them with the means to act upon their awarded power.
People should be able to move freely out of countries and into others. I think we'd all move to Norway or some other Scandinavian country. Or we'd take over a more gentle-climate country with a bunch of freethinking good people by matching the original population in numbers. Wouldn't it be great if we could just rearrange this planet's countries? Just take all different constitutions, government forms and kinds of economy, put them on a row and let people over 18 see which they would feel most comfortable with. Then assign stretches of the planet according to the size of the supporting group and let them choose which place they want on the map, giving the largest group the first pick and so on. I think we'd solve a lot of problems, if only something like that were possible...
Concerning the trial Bradley is in, from what I've read in the reports of his pre-trial and what other information drifts around on the Internet, I think it is obvious he was showing signs of severe mental health problems, his superiors did know about that but failed to act in time; and that basically created the situation in which Bradley was 'allowed' to leak the said information. If it can be proven he actually leaked it, since all I've seen so far as actual evidence is a chat log in which nothing more but a suggestion to leaking is made. Concerning the treatment of Bradley, I'm not sure military courts in the US recognize civil rights, but how is it possible to detain someone for over 10 months in atrocious conditions without trial? And how is that not a violation of due process and habeas corpus? It's a good thing the UN are 'investigating', for what that's worth; and Amnesty International has condemned the imprisonment. I'd almost start giving them money again. A troubled soul, a good man, who did the best he could, under the circumstances he was in. I don't see how any judge could rule that he was at fault and should be punished, and call that justice. But as I've said in the previous post, law isn't the same thing as justice. Though I think, and I think all justice professionals should think; that when laws do not reflect or obstruct actual justice, the laws are wrong and should be changed.
Perhaps it is not possible to make that happen directly in a trial where such problems are recognized. But it seems that in itself is a fault as well: how many people have been tried for a crime that turned out not to be a crime, before the legislature corrected the error? Crime should not be a cultural matter, when bodies of government punish someone, they'd better do it on solid grounds, and that means objective morality (or 'moral realism'). Especially when there is a significant portion of the public demanding it.
I recommend this article. > link <
And this one. > link <
Merry Christmas by the way.
Looking around me, the people over here seem ignorant about this issue, perhaps the story didn't quite make it to the Dutch version of 'news'; perhaps we don't care enough. Which latter strikes me as odd, as we are supposed to be a compassionate bunch over here in Europe, all 'up in arms' over civil rights... and stuff. But I guess that is a strongly romanticized image of Europeans. Mainly I think we - and by that I mean the larger portion of us - are chronically fed-up with big issues and have sort of rusted into place with preferring comfortably numb over anything unfortunate going in the world. See popular Dutch television for evidence.
Whistleblowers are good people. In fact, I'd say 'blowing a whistle' (no pun intended) is one of the best ways of proving you're one of the good guys. But being of the good persuasion seems risky as of late. Besides that, it seems a waste of time, since the actual big bad boys are, as they say, too big to fail. Meaning they're either a big American corporation or the American government. Why hasn't anyone been prosecuted over any of the wars the Imperialistic USA has been waging over time? This brings me to the question what human rights, civil rights and conventions on war and protection of the innocent are worth; when they either 'don't apply' are changed or simply ignored when they become inconvenient for a superpower, be that a nation, a corporation or the Catholic Church. International law has failed. If it ever had a point.
I can very well understand how people under constant frustration of not just talking to a wall about these issues, but talking to an enormous re-enforced concrete perimeter wall with razorwire and trigger happy guards patrolling on top indirectly paid for by themselves; lead to civil unrest and, perhaps in the near future, civil war. It is the only way out people see and use, and rightly so I'd say, in getting some real Change going; as the powers that be are too dependant on too many corporations and other powerful groups - too tangled up in interests with power, that they're too afraid to do anything that might change the country. People in government need to stop aiming for more power and wealth, and start aiming for what people in the government are supposed to aim for: improving things for the populace.
Anyone can see there is nothing morally wrong with the actions of Bradley Manning, at least concerning the Leaking. So why isn't there more of this issue in the news? Where are the supporters over here? I sincerely hope this changes soon and things drastically improve for Bradley.
Personally my greater passion comes from a kind of recognition, kinship if you will. It's like when I provided a First Aid presence at a cremation of someone I didn't know, but whose eulogy really struck me because of the many similarities we shared. This Bradley is my kind of guy. He's gay, one of the boys; he's intelligent, though I suspect of a different kind than I possess; he's 24, just half a year older than me; overly passionate, altruistic and ideological; he's blond (what can I say...); he's a man and he's white. To be honest I wouldn't care as much (though I don't think much less) if he were a straight black woman in her 40's, which, put in the light of common social conventions, is rather racist, sexist and discriminatory in many other ways - of me. But I think it's perfectly natural to feel this kinship and automatically be more passionate about injustice towards Bradley, so I'm not troubled. This also reminds me of that blond ex-gay survivor of three posts ago.
Concerning governments and information, I've said something about that in the last post, but I'd like to go into it just a little more. Information is one of the most precious things we as a species possess and pass on to future generations, and perhaps species of Man, if we don't kill everyone before evolution takes us to a significantly different new species (and if that is still possible with all our advances in medicine and psychology). Restricting the sharing, or flow, of that information, or even censuring, hiding or destroying it; all seem an indescribably terrible sin. The loss of the Great Library in old-time Alexandria, was a loss of incredible size, even though we can only guess as to what its complete catalogue was. That we, people, create structures of power to govern us, doesn't in any way grant those constructions the sole right to the collected information of our species. The purpose of government is clear, and it is clearly violated - either by becoming a secondary priority over individual pursuits or group-efforts for power and wealth; or completely ignored by governments that are actually detrimental to the well-being of their people. Or both. What is even more stunning is how the governments of the world seem in constant struggle to keep as much information as possible secret about how they spend money and resources and what they're up to exactly, from the very people who mandated them and provide them with the means to act upon their awarded power.
People should be able to move freely out of countries and into others. I think we'd all move to Norway or some other Scandinavian country. Or we'd take over a more gentle-climate country with a bunch of freethinking good people by matching the original population in numbers. Wouldn't it be great if we could just rearrange this planet's countries? Just take all different constitutions, government forms and kinds of economy, put them on a row and let people over 18 see which they would feel most comfortable with. Then assign stretches of the planet according to the size of the supporting group and let them choose which place they want on the map, giving the largest group the first pick and so on. I think we'd solve a lot of problems, if only something like that were possible...
Concerning the trial Bradley is in, from what I've read in the reports of his pre-trial and what other information drifts around on the Internet, I think it is obvious he was showing signs of severe mental health problems, his superiors did know about that but failed to act in time; and that basically created the situation in which Bradley was 'allowed' to leak the said information. If it can be proven he actually leaked it, since all I've seen so far as actual evidence is a chat log in which nothing more but a suggestion to leaking is made. Concerning the treatment of Bradley, I'm not sure military courts in the US recognize civil rights, but how is it possible to detain someone for over 10 months in atrocious conditions without trial? And how is that not a violation of due process and habeas corpus? It's a good thing the UN are 'investigating', for what that's worth; and Amnesty International has condemned the imprisonment. I'd almost start giving them money again. A troubled soul, a good man, who did the best he could, under the circumstances he was in. I don't see how any judge could rule that he was at fault and should be punished, and call that justice. But as I've said in the previous post, law isn't the same thing as justice. Though I think, and I think all justice professionals should think; that when laws do not reflect or obstruct actual justice, the laws are wrong and should be changed.
Perhaps it is not possible to make that happen directly in a trial where such problems are recognized. But it seems that in itself is a fault as well: how many people have been tried for a crime that turned out not to be a crime, before the legislature corrected the error? Crime should not be a cultural matter, when bodies of government punish someone, they'd better do it on solid grounds, and that means objective morality (or 'moral realism'). Especially when there is a significant portion of the public demanding it.
I recommend this article. > link <
And this one. > link <
Merry Christmas by the way.
In other news, I didn't actually get a diagnosis last Thursday, more like a temporary one they weren't quite sure of yet. I'm not depressed, because I still enjoy many things, and their bet is on Asperger syndrome. Not sure what to think about that, I have an abstract idea on what that means, but they assured me the next meeting will probably clear that up. The 'temporary diagnosis' is, as I understand it, based on my intelligence, problems with social conventions, problems with showing my emotions, constructs in dealing with problems and how I am sometimes misunderstood by others. She assured me Albert Einstein probably had Asperger, I was charmed. At least I don't think there is medication for it, so they'll just help me cope with it through good old therapy. Let's hope it is any good.
She asked me (twice) how I felt about hearing all that. Incidentally, my friend the partner of the preacher, asked me the same question - how I felt about going to hear the diagnosis. Rational as I am I think the diagnosis is a good thing, I see it as a small victory and a clear step in approaching permanent improvement. Also, this whole ordeal has been uplifting just by constantly reminding me I am taking control over the situation by seeking this help - which will probably make things better for me.
She asked me (twice) how I felt about hearing all that. Incidentally, my friend the partner of the preacher, asked me the same question - how I felt about going to hear the diagnosis. Rational as I am I think the diagnosis is a good thing, I see it as a small victory and a clear step in approaching permanent improvement. Also, this whole ordeal has been uplifting just by constantly reminding me I am taking control over the situation by seeking this help - which will probably make things better for me.
